Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

[avramd]

I do often wonder when I drive over some bridges, what would happen/what would I do, if I actually went off the bridge and ended up in the water. W/ gas cars, I had strategies worked out in advance. With the Tesla, I really wonder if it will explode or electrocute me, so maybe I don't need a strategy. I also wonder if they have programmed the car to lower its own windows if it detects that it is falling for more than a second or so.

In other news. it took four months, but I finally got an electrician to install a 240v outlet in my parents garage. So, last weekend was the first time I got to visit them without needing to put measurable time or attention into the charge state of my car. We got there a little before dinner time, and it was fully charged before midnight. I topped it off the day before I went home, and got to drive home with no concerns. First trip there & back without any public charging.

They have a Fusion plug-in hybrid, so I initially justified buying them a charger & having it installed as a present for them that I also benefit from. They only get 20-25 miles of electric range, and with the 110v charger, it takes all night to charge. Now they can fully charge in < 2 hrs. But now that I have the charger there, I have to be honest - I'm really lucky they have a use for it, b/c it would have been a lot harder to convince them to let me put it in if it was just for me.

[BeauV]

I have to admit, I have never considered what would happen if one of our Teslas went in the water.

First, I don't think there is any chance you'd be electrocuted. The current would try to flow from one side of the battery to the other. Provided you weren't holding onto one leg of the power or in-between the two power posts, I don't think anything would happen.

The highest risk to you would be that a short through saltwater might cause the battery bank to dump power so fast it started to boil the water. But, there is a fuse. So that can't happen. Freshwater doesn't conduct electricity very well, so I think you're going to be just fine. Just like any car with power windows, if you're airborne and going to land in water, OPEN THE DOOR and get out. LOL!

Seriously, I think you're every bit as screwed falling in a river in an electric car as you are in a gasoline or diesel car. The goal is always to get out of the car and start swimming.

[avramd]

I have to admit, I have never considered what would happen if one of our Teslas went in the water

I realize fresh water wouldn't be much different from a gas car, it's just about making sure you don't get trapped.

My worry about relying on a fuse is that if it is immersed in a conductive medium, then we're entirely dependent on the sealing of the system to be kinda perfect, including surviving the blowing of any fuse. If salt water can get to both terminals, then it doesn't matter if the intended path was interrupted. Similarly, I was thinking the key question isn't whether I'm holding on to anything I shouldn't be, whether I am more conductive than salt water - b/c if the salt water is the path, I might be making part of that path shorter.

And in my case, it's probably going to be salt water. Not that I have any plans or anything (yet...)

[BeauV]

I have to admit, I have never considered what would happen if one of our Teslas went in the water

I realize fresh water wouldn't be much different from a gas car, it's just about making sure you don't get trapped.

My worry about relying on a fuse is that if it is immersed in a conductive medium, then we're entirely dependent on the sealing of the system to be kinda perfect, including surviving the blowing of any fuse. If salt water can get to both terminals, then it doesn't matter if the intended path was interrupted. Similarly, I was thinking the key question isn't whether I'm holding on to anything I shouldn't be, whether I am more conductive than salt water - b/c if the salt water is the path, I might be making part of that path shorter.

And in my case, it's probably going to be salt water. Not that I have any plans or anything (yet...)

All good questions. To help a little, your body has a lower salt content than the water. The electricity would go through the water before it went through you. Because it's the salt that allows water to conduct electricity. Pure distilled water is actually a pretty good insulator. This is why folks are safer from stray current leakage around docks in the ocean than they are in a lake, the current goes through the water and around them in saltwater.

As to fuses, a lot depends on where the fuse is. If it's in the waterproof container along with the batteries, it would disconnect one side and there wouldn't be any current flow. If it's outside the container the power could leak. I don't know the answer to this. I rather doubt that the fusing element is outside the container, but I don't know that. The builders of e-cars have been VERY conservative in their designs.

BTW - you are MUCH more likely to be hit by a drunk or distracted driver and injured or killed than you are to end up in the water inside your car. If you want to worry about anything, worry about drunk or distracted drivers.

[avramd]

BTW - you are MUCH more likely to be hit by a drunk or distracted driver and injured or killed than you are to end up in the water inside your car. If you want to worry about anything, worry about drunk or distracted drivers.

If it helps any, I normally only think about this when I am actually on bridges. It's not something I'm worried about, it's something my brain sometimes does when it is idle and I notice I'm on a bridge in an electric car.

[avramd]

In other news, I have to say, one of the down sides of owning an electric car (and no other car), is that my muscle memory for driving normal cars has completely faded in a way that may very well cost me some money. When I need to drive an automatic gasoline car, I am shocked by and unprepared for how much they lurch whey I give them a little gas, and THEN how they do not slow down on their own at parking speeds.

I occasionally need to re-park renters' cars (not worth getting into), and when they don't go, and I just touch the pedal, it's like I said "Warp 9 - engage."

[avramd]

Hey Beau,

I'm curious what you see for battery degradation on your Teslas. It appears that I've lost 15 miles of range in just 6 months, with 10k miles on my car.

I sure hope this is exponential decay, not linear. 30mi/yr would be beyond unacceptable...

[BeauV]

Hey Beau,

I'm curious what you see for battery degradation on your Teslas. It appears that I've lost 15 miles of range in just 6 months, with 10k miles on my car.

I sure hope this is exponential decay, not linear. 30mi/yr would be beyond unacceptable...

We have about 35k miles on one car and 60k on the other. On the higher mileage car, 2014 Model S, I think we've lost about 10% total. On the newer one, I don't see any loss. I'm guessing something else is going on. My wife had setup her car to use the batteries to keep the cockpit cool in high temps. I don't remember what the option is called, but the car would sit in the parking lot in the summer with the AC running keeping the max temp down to about 120 deg. inside. It took me a while to get that sorted. (I just found she'd done it to my car too.)

We also have a dog, so we sometimes leave the car in "Dog Mode" (Big display that says THE AC IS ON TO KEEP THE DOG COOL or some such and it holds whatever temp you told it to.) That will burn though 10% of battery life while you're in the shopping center.

Then there are the obvious things. It's not advised to deep cycle any sort of batteries, but LiIon is particularly sensitive to being stuffed with the max charge. If you can avoid that it's a good idea. But, long term tests have shown that the batteries have many more cycles in their life than Toyota and Tesla ever imagined.

[avramd]

Beau,

This conversation caused me to take a closer look a my teslafi.com data on my battery health, and I found out that it's default filter was not "all data." Here is the graph of my rated range since day 1 (actually day 7):

battery_test.jpeg

Notice the very distinct cliffs in the data around 9,000 mi and then again around 10,000. (Also note - I don't understand the scale of the x-axis - it looks like it is logarithmic or exponential, I'm not sure why)

The app gives me tons of visibility into what exactly I was up to on a day-by-day basis, including every single drive and charge. So far I'm not seeing anything that stands out as interesting about my behavior around those to cliffs. Both are very near in time to long drives that brought the battery down to <10%, followed by charges that brought it back up to 90%. But I've done that several dozen times without such cliffs. I haven't figured out anything anomalous about my behavior yet around those two cliffs.

I've only charged my battery to 100% three times, and to 92-94 % charge four time. These don't seem to directly correspond to these cliffs, but some of them do seem to predate some of the cliffs by somewhat close time/mileage proximity.

[BeauV]

Beau,

This conversation caused me to take a closer look a my teslafi.com data on my battery health, and I found out that it's default filter was not "all data." Here is the graph of my rated range since day 1 (actually day 7):

battery_test.jpeg

Notice the very distinct cliffs in the data around 9,000 mi and then again around 10,000. (Also note - I don't understand the scale of the x-axis - it looks like it is logarithmic or exponential, I'm not sure why)

The app gives me tons of visibility into what exactly I was up to on a day-by-day basis, including every single drive and charge. So far I'm not seeing anything that stands out as interesting about my behavior around those to cliffs. Both are very near in time to long drives that brought the battery down to <10%, followed by charges that brought it back up to 90%. But I've done that several dozen times without such cliffs. I haven't figured out anything anomalous about my behavior yet around those two cliffs.

I've only charged my battery to 100% three times, and to 92-94 % charge four time. These don't seem to directly correspond to these cliffs, but some of them do seem to predate some of the cliffs by somewhat close time/mileage proximity.

Interesting - did you plow through those other things I suggested. I can distinctly recall when my range plunged because my lovely Admiral had turned on the interior keep-cool option and I came out of the yacht club to find that I couldn't get home that day without recharging. It took me a week to sort that out.

[avramd]

Interesting - did you plow through those other things I suggested. I can distinctly recall when my range plunged because my lovely Admiral had turned on the interior keep-cool option and I came out of the yacht club to find that I couldn't get home that day without recharging. It took me a week to sort that out.

HHAHAHAAA!!! OMG I love this question!!!

No, I did not plow through them - quite the opposite, I put a non-trivial amount of time into addressing them, and then deleted it b/c it sounded boring when I read it.

So... The feature of which you speak where the car tries to take the edge off of the summer sun and the stupid glass roof by using the battery to keep the cabin "still hot but not stupid-hot"... I had that feature turned on for a while and never once had any evidence that it ever activated. I can't remember if it is still on, but basically it says "reduce cabin temp to <some still hot but not asinine temp> as long as the battery has more than 20% charge." I repeatedly found my car w/ an internal cabin temp close to 130º and no evidence that the a/c was or had run ever - including never coming to the car w/ the battery lower than expected without the setting. Also never seen the climate control running while plugged in unless I had manually activated it with the app. Now this is not to say that the feature didn't kill my battery - but if it did, it did so without doing what it was supposed to do

As for "Dog Mode," yes, I have a little to say about that. 1-2 days a week, I start my day by going out for a large iced coffee, and then parking by the water (often by my mooring), pulling out my laptop. and working for 30-90 minutes. When I think of it, I turn on Camp Mode. When I don't, the car shuts off after a while, and I turn it back on. Either way, the point is I spend maybe 2-5 hrs a week w/ the a/c running even though I'm not driving. However, this behavior has been quite consistent since day one. I have no data to support this, it's just my "butt-dyno" talking, but I'm pretty sure that this doesn't correlate to the steps in the battery capacity graph.

So I'm left with the only behavior I can identify that loosely correlates w/ the steps (but not with the lack of implied steps that are missing) is the handful of times I've charged past 90%.

LMK if I missed anything?

[BeauV]

No, I don't think you're missing anything. I do precisely the same thing in our cars. The only difference I'd report was that the Ap will tell you the internal temp of your car anytime you care to look. In our experience, it was always maintained at the specific temp (the default maybe 130° F - I've never looked). I know it does run because I've found it running.

[BeauV]

I did a little research and found out a few things:

1) The temp for overheat protection is 105° F, which our cars easily reach during spring, summer, and fall if they are left in the sun. Dark gray exterior paint and black interior heat it up quickly.

2) Here's some data from one home scientist who ran an experiment:

For reference, Alex says he loses about three rated miles per day if the car is simply idle and parked in his garage. His garage doesn't get hot enough to initiate Cabin Overheat Protection. During the eight-hour time period in the hot sun, his Model 3 loses about 12 rated miles.

Source

From the Tesla Owner's Forum: here

I did not immediately disable the factory 105F setting for Cabin Overheat protection when I first got the car. After one day in So Arizona's end of September heat and the 50 mile loss, I have disabled it completely. Added ceramic tint on all windows (although not very dark) and it's fine for me.

Finally, I remember that the "Sentry Mode" can drain the battery quickly. It is basically running all the cameras and proximity sensors continuously. I think we used it twice or three times and decided losing 20 to 50 miles of range wasn't worth it. You might check that too. It's an option you can turn on automatically every time you park or just do it manually.

Hope this helps.

[avramd]

Hey Beau,

Wow - thank you for digging into that! My experience with Sentry mode is that it costs about 4% of charger per 24 hours. My original thinking was focused purely on the question "is it going to run me down to a problematic charge state?" so I only turned it off when I had to park disconnected from a charger for a long trip. It is an entirely new question "How much am I shortening my battery life by having it on?" I park on a busy street often, with a lot of foot traffic, so I like the sentry feature. But I am not plugged in when I'm there, so maybe I'm better off installing security cameras in the house.

I did a little digging into my data. It seems I use 3-8 miles worth of battery 3-5 times a week when I park by the water for 30-90 mins. Since I actively enjoy this, and it's around 1,000 mi/year, I think I'll keep doing this. I especially loved it today when we got hit with a heavy rain storm while I was parked. I really enjoy being in the car, parked, during a heavy rain. Another benefit of the glass roof, I like the sound of the rain on it.

Right - 105º - that's the cut-off. I have never found my car at or near this magic temperature when the it was in the sun for any length of time. When I use the app to pre-cool my car, I always see the interior temp, and it is basically always above 120º if the car has been sitting in the sun mid-day. I believe there is either a bug where the "cabin overheat protection" feature is not functioning in my car, or there is some other setting I'm missing that conflicts with it. It does not come on even when I'm plugged in.

Hmmm... ceramic tint... I will have to put some thought into that. I don't like dark windows, but if I can reduce cabin heat passively without making them noticeably darker, I'd do that.

I have an interesting data set to share with you. Yesterday I had the car serviced, and had a unique opportunity. My one regret about my car specs is that I wished I could have gotten the white seats. I'd have thought they'd help minimize cabin heating in the sun. There was a pair of Model Y's in the lot that were not owned yet, side by side; one white with white seats, one dark blue with black seats. Both oriented the same towards the sun. I asked the service manager to look up their interior temps for me. Ironically, the white/white one was hotter inside than the blue/black one. However, it was early-ish in the day, the sun wasn't that high yet - so these temps were all low. The white one was 106º outside, 92º inside. So not the real test I would have liked.

[BeauV]

Wow - thank you for digging into that! My experience with Sentry mode is that it costs about 4% of charger per 24 hours. My original thinking was focused purely on the question "is it going to run me down to a problematic charge state?" so I only turned it off when I had to park disconnected from a charger for a long trip. It is an entirely new question "How much am I shortening my battery life by having it on?" I park on a busy street often, with a lot of foot traffic, so I like the sentry feature. But I am not plugged in when I'm there, so maybe I'm better off installing security cameras in the house.

...snip...

I'm not sure you'll be shortening your battery life by burning through 4% of the battery every day unless that's the last 4% in the battery. These batteries have proven to have many many times more cycles than early technology reports predicted. Toyota predicted initially that the Prius would need new batteries in about 50k miles, it turns out that most Prius with 200k batteries are still doing fine. In the case of our 2014 Model S, we typically burn through about 80% of the battery capacity about 4 days a week and we've not seen any significant decline in capacity. However, we're not using a 3rd party app to monitor this. Thus, we don't have any fancy graphs, just the results of "can we get home". After 7 years, we arrive home with about the same left over charge we had in 2014, and the distance is the same.

I think the "issues" with the various forms of Lithium batteries are different. Some don't like deep cycles (although they are much better than lead-acid batteries). Some don't like being kept fully charged. etc... Some really don't like being deeply discharged. I don't have scientific data on it, but I believe the battery technology that Tesla uses is susceptible to being too deeply discharged. As a result, I've been trying to avoid ever getting below 15% of battery capacity, and have only done that twice since we bought the first car in 2014.

I have an interesting data set to share with you. Yesterday I had the car serviced, and had a unique opportunity. My one regret about my car specs is that I wished I could have gotten the white seats. I'd have thought they'd help minimize cabin heating in the sun. There was a pair of Model Y's in the lot that were not owned yet, side by side; one white with white seats, one dark blue with black seats. Both oriented the same towards the sun. I asked the service manager to look up their interior temps for me. Ironically, the white/white one was hotter inside than the blue/black one. However, it was early-ish in the day, the sun wasn't that high yet - so these temps were all low. The white one was 106º outside, 92º inside. So not the real test I would have liked.

Interesting - We only have dark gray cars. They are the color of the asphalt so that the cops can't see me. Interiors are all black. We're clearly stuck in a rut!!

[avramd]

I have a suspicion you are onto something with the deep discharge. One of the "shelves" in my capacity history happened right around a discharge to 4% capacity.

Interestingly, I tried that cabin overheat protection again today, and it finally worked! I had a 2.5 hr "idle" session where it used 3% battery, and when I came to the car, the cabin temp was 100º despite being in direct sunlight. Glad to know the feature finally works - perhaps the last update fixed it. And now I'm turning it off b/c it's way more effective to just turn on climate control when I know I'm about to go out to the car.

Sadly, I **never** seem to remember to turn it on when I am coming back to my car from my mooring.

[avramd]

In case anyone is interested, I conducted my first real towing with Molly (the Model Y).

The original plan was to only use Molly to haul out Wicked Wahine (my F24, I did not name her), and then borrow a friend's truck to take her "overland" to Wareham, MA, to a well-respected trimaran repair guy - 50 miles from Newport. However, after pulling her out and towing her through my neighborhood about 10 blocks to my house, it felt much better than I expected.

Note that this is after two major changes on the boat-side of this equation: 1) I had my trailer serviced, including having the semi-seized brakes disconnected (replacing couldn't be done in time), and 2) I re-balanced my trailer in the spring before I launched. I'm estimating that the axel position was giving me 1,000 lbs of tongue weight originally. Now it's right around 250.

I wanted to head up to Kennebunk to see my parents, it'd been a while. And when just lowering my mast and getting the boat out of the water took till 3pm, I knew I wasn't going to drive back to Newport from the Cape and then up to Maine. So I decided to go for it. It went surprisingly well. The first mile is the bumpiest, and I didn't have a single cringe-moment. I drove the speed limit or 5 under the whole way, except when it got to 65, I drove 55. But everything behaved very well, nothing was uncomfortable. Surprisingly, the regenerative breaking was enough, I still barely used my brakes - and that is without any deliberate adjustment to my driving technique (other than going slower, which admittedly is a big adjustment).

The car's software did a surprisingly good job of adapting to the load and predicting my range. On average, the trip took 2.2 rated miles per actual mile driven. You can see from the picture of the "energy app" that it had basically nailed down the right trajectory by mile 10. I started at 90% battery; According to "rating," I'd normally have gotten there at 75% (which means probably 65 for me). Instead, I got there w/ 48% left. More importantly, I was sufficiently clued in to my battery usage the whole way, so I was never worried, and would have had plenty of notice regarding when it was time to abandoned the boat temporarily to be able to make it to a supercharger.

In other news, I finally found an actual driving application for the glass roof - since I can not see squat out of the rear window with my boat behind me, I decided to angle my rear-view mirror upwards - and was treated with an actual functional view of my rig and the top of my boat, and could check that things were going well there. This saved me losing a solar panel on the highway as well as unnecessary stress on my CDI furler, which I preloaded once I saw how much it was bouncing.

Here are some fun shots of the adventure.

[BeauV]

Fun stuff!! We use the Model X trailer hitch all the time for a bike rack and a small log splitter I rent to make firewood. So far, it's been flawless.

[SemiSalt]

My daily drive is a 2009 Mazda 5. It's sort of a mini-station wagon or mini-minivan. It's fun to drive and I like have the cargo capacity. It gets about 30 mpg on the highway but only around 20 mpg around town, and most of my driving local. For longer trips, we mostly use my wife's Prius which gets 45-55 mpg depending on I'm not quite sure what. Of late, the passenger's seat foot well has been getting wet from time to time. I think not in every storm. Not sure of the entry point. It results in annoying condensation on the inside of the windshield. I wonder if it's time to trade up from a 12-year-old car.

I complete 3/4 of a century today. Of all the advancement of science and technology, I think daily life has been changed most by the internet and the cell phone, both of which are developments of the computer. Electric cars have not yet changed our way of life, but all-in-all, I have wondered about a new car and an electric vehicle would be a good match to my use profile. I always said an electric vehicle would not be of interest until it had the range to get to JFK and back, about 60 miles, and that threshold has been met.

I'm not interested in a Tesla; it's too much sedan and not enough cargo carrier. There is a Chevy dealer up the street, but Chevy had taken themselves out the the running with a Bolt spontaneous combustion problem. The Nissan Leaf looks to small and not ambitious enough.

Is there something out there better for me than a Prius Prime? Something without a gas engine?

[TheOffice]

VW ID 4 might check all the boxes.

[BeauV]

You might be amazed at the room within a Tesla. At least check it out.

[Panope]

I have no help for Semi,

But I can give a one year report on the Cheapo Leaf-o

-2013 Nissan Leaf.
-Had 39,000 miles when I bought it. Now has 46,000 miles (12 months later).
-Car is driven at least 6 days per week.
-Battery capacity seems to be (still) near 100%.
-All charging during my ownership has been via 120V.
-I have not bothered to install a 240 volt outlet at any parking spots that I frequent.
-I do not own a 240 volt charge cord.
-I have charged at locations other than at my houses exactly twice (120V at my fathers house).
-Other than a hubcap that fell off twice (on the same corner, near my house, recovered, fixed), the car has been trouble free.

Usually, things like power windows and other electronic automotive gadgets do not seem to improve my experience significantly. However, I fucking love the keyless entry/ignition! No more digging keys out of pockets while fumbling with armloads of groceries and stuff.

My only real complaint, is the blocked visibility that results from the wide and radically raked A-pillars. In general, these pillars should be located as far aft as possible and be narrower than the distance between human eyes (so that at least one eye might see a hazard). In the past, I have complained bitterly about modern car "rear visibility", but I am resigned to this now. Mirrors and the back-up camera are an adequate substitute for looking over ones shoulder. I guess.

I am happy with the car. Will keep.

Steve

[Steele]

Semi, the Korean electric options might work for you. The Kia Niro is a similar configuration to your Mazda. Kia/Hyundai are comming out with 2 new dedicated E cars, the Niro is a converted gas model. All are 4 door hatches.
In regards to the wet footwell, does the car have a sunroof? They all leak and therefore have a drainage system that is prone to clogging with gunk over time. The water then percolates with gravity ending up on the floor.

[SemiSalt]

Semi, the Korean electric options might work for you. The Kia Niro is a similar configuration to your Mazda. Kia/Hyundai are comming out with 2 new dedicated E cars, the Niro is a converted gas model. All are 4 door hatches.
In regards to the wet footwell, does the car have a sunroof? They all leak and therefore have a drainage system that is prone to clogging with gunk over time. The water then percolates with gravity ending up on the floor.

No sunroof, but the point that the problem could be a clogged drain is well taken.

If I get serious about a new car, I'll probably visit all the local dealers, including Kia. I'll give the Leaf a second chance, too.

[Ken Heaton (Salazar)]

We have 12 mature trees plus a few others in our yard, which is a typical City lot, so we have a lot of leaves, seeds etc. come down each season. We don't have a garage yet (but I will have one before or just after I decide to retire), so our cars park outside, under the trees. Every fall I make a point of clearing out the debris that accumulates in the wiper cowl drains.

At the base of your vehicle’s windshield is an area occupied by the wiper arm linkages. It’s usually covered by a metal or plastic cover with slots in it to let water run down into a metal tray at the bottom (usually only a few inches from the top). Usually, the air intake for your vehicle's Heat and Air-conditioning is located here too. This water is then allowed to drain out through channels on each side of the vehicle and can be seen exiting just behind the front wheels on most vehicles. If the exit drains on those channels are blocked by leaves, seeds, and other organic grit build-up, the water may find its way into your passenger footwell.

On our VW Rabbits, it is easily accessed from under the hood, by removing a pressure fitted rubber hood seal which allows the plastic cover to be lifted to clear out the debris. Once I scoop out most of it by hand I go in there with the garden hose and spray it out until the drains flow freely.

[Rob McAlpine]

I've driven a couple of Model S's, and they are among the nicest cars I've ever been in. I'm very tempted to get one for around town, but they still are not practical for our use, because our distances are so great. A little more and we'll be in.

My buddy George, who commissioned Restive, gave his wife one, liked it, bought himself one, then got another for their place in Florida.

The other day I woke up east of St. Louis, and went to bed in Midland, TX. I think I drove well over 900 miles that day. Started with a full tank, filled up twice. Acura Rl. Tesla can't do that, yet. But they will.

[SemiSalt]

I came across this Chevy Bolt in the wild. As you can see, it has a commercial wrap announcing "Quiet Robotic Mowing". I believe they were working on a lawn across the street from a home that uses a Husqvarna robot mower. It must be the street for early triers.

It looks pretty nice, though small. At least it wasn't on fire. GM is recalling something like 170,000 Bolts to replace battery modules after instances of spontaneous combustion. (Google for ugly pictures.) That can't be good for the bottom line.

[Panope]

For my needs, the size, shape, and function of a Bolt is just about perfect.

The catching on fire, not so much.

Steve

[BeauV]

In the early Tesla years, there were a few fires but the company went up the learning curve and now it's nearly unheard of. (Given there isn't a wreck that stops the battery cooling while they're really hot.) A great deal of the IP that Tesla has developed is around the various schemes for managing batteries and how they build their motors. Facinating stuff.

[Panope]

Beau,

I recently saw a video clip of Musk saying that Tesla has "open sourced" all of their patents.

Is it as simple as that? Or do they still have some secrets?

Steve